House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is demanding a seat at the debt negotiation table now that talks are taking place between President Obama and the top Republican congressional leaders. It’s unlikely Pelosi is going to get a real seat at the table, however — she simply hasn’t made a compelling case for Obama to give her one.

Time and time again, the President has been able to cut deals without Pelosi at the table and yet she has delivered the votes he needed, over the objections of her own caucus. The war supplemental that included the $108 billion in IMF funding, the health care bill with the anti-choice language and no public option, the deal to extend the Bush tax cut and the recent Libya war defunding vote are just a few prominent examples.

The pattern is so well-established that President Obama can correctly assume that when the time comes, he can count on Pelosi to make sure her caucus walks the plank, no matter what he gives away to Republicans . She cannot point to one example which would indicate she would sink a deal that Obama negotiated without her.

The negotiation table is like the poker table: you don’t get a seat unless you have the chips to play. By failing to prove she actually has the will and/or the power to say no, Pelosi has shown the President she has no leverage.

Pelosi did this to herself. I still remeber when people wanted a floor fight during the primary and Pelosi strong armed people into supporting Obama and insisted there would be no floor fight. Why in the world would Obama view her as someone capable of fighting or someone who wouldn’t be willing to compromise(after all she willingly compromised thousands upon thousands of votes)?

Although with Nancy who know what she really wants. This IS the person who took impeachment AND single payer off the table. If she is progressives best hope for a deal then our goose is cooked anyway.

“By failing to prove she actually has the will and/or the power to say no, Pelosi has shown the President she has no leverage.”

The same might be said of the Democrats in general as they continue to make concessions to Republicans to raise the debt ceiling – something Republicans are going to do anyway eventually. Republican’s use of the Tea Party to pull a Crazy Nixon is no excuse either since it’s such a transparent tactic.

you can’t be serious.
This is the least Democrat president, that the democrats have ever elected.
He couldn’t be one to judge.
Conversely, this president is the one who MADE SURE, the deals struck would ultimately be more favored by republicans.
Hence the term ‘walk the plank’.
He didn’t ‘loose the house’ he burned it down.

I don’t disagree with what you said at all. My point was that Nancy as access to the prez. If she had led the Dems properly and told the prez what was happening, we might be in a better place. But, of course, she lives in that bubble, too, and we are all paying the price.

Nancy Pelosi? Jon, who would have ever counted on her to do anything but further her own self-absorbed career? She’s a facade of a politician. A Potemkin Democrat from old East Coast monied interests. Puh-leaze. Although I respect you and your blogs, this article is a joke on its face value.

But how did she get 3 stones away from POTUS? By being a cut throat bitch who would fuck over her own grandmother, that is if she wasn’t such a devout Catholic and all. If I am wrong abot that, I am absolutely certain she hasn’t done anything in her life even remotely so-called ‘progressive’. And besides, like Joe Kennedy set up his little Dynasty, so did Pelosi’s dad set her up to be a pretend ‘leftist’ to help give all of us peons a mere sensation of Democracy.
And another pint, if you haven’t figured it out yet, there is a whole smoke-filled back room were the government really lives runs shit. That’s where she wants to insure her ‘retirement’ is.

As with Obama, I can’t get any of my so-called liberal friends to believe me when I tell them Pelosi is worthless. They’re brainwashed partisans, and the fact that their team has been getting whupped for thirty years means nothing to them. Democrat = good, Republican = bad. Many say things like ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘I don’t like to think.’
.
Nancy is crying crocodile tears of self-pity at some fundraiser somewhere, crying all the way to the bank.

The only way to clean this train wreck of a government that has evolved is to VOTE all of them out, ALL OF THEM, over and over and over until they quit the fellatio that passes for a Democracy/Republic.

Again, this is a false choice. You’re basically speaking about the difference between stabbed in the back and stabbed in the front. It really doesn’t matter if theoretically Pelosi is better than Reid if her policy positions don’t result in the same being implemented- and thus far they do not. We don’t live in the theoretical world. We live in a real world where Nancy has marginalized herself by compromising away stuff like accountability and positions that she had public support for.

Anyway,it’s refreshing that more folks are seeing through the “facade”.Most of these creeps are wealthy more than many of us can ever get to in 5 life times.In short they can’t relate to us,ordinary people for chrissakes!

Does anyone really think if Pelosi’s daughter,Alexandra had to go fight in Afghaistan she would be supporting war funding ?…the fighting & suffering is for the poor & dwindling middle class children.

Pelosi has never been anything but a contemptible swine office hag that serves the boss (whoever he is)just the way he likes it to maintain her top dog in the office and fat pay check position. Pelosi has never worked this position as a representative of the people and for the well being of American citizens. She always operates from the office queen handbook securing the favor of whoever is in the boss’s chair and taking no prisoners when it comes to delivering for the big boys in power whatever their political stripes.

I can’t stand this “impeachment is off the table” phony and I was ill when stupid Dems rallied to see her seated in her current position. Why, because they can’t think for themselves. Pelosi has sold us out faster than a two dollar ho over and over. Why can’t dems voters grow a brain of their own and demand someone who will stand up for US and what the American people need and want. She’s a useless sycophant and the sooner she is gone, the better. She reminds me of these women that allow their boyfriends to molest their kids because they are so desperate for a man or pay check they allow it.

Or if her kid had to go without health care she might have cared about Single payer while the health care debate raged rather than selling us out and then trying to curry favor by saying she was for Single Payer after the hideous “Shift ALLLLLL the wealth” Obamacare bill was a done deal.

Nancy Pelosi has not been the staunchest liberal, to be certain, she has, time and again, stood in the way of progress on real issues that matter to the people in the base of the party. I agree with everything that Jon Walker wrote about her. She definitely did this to herself by being too eager to be Obama’s toady.

However, can we please refrain from referring to her using sexist language?

The commenter who called her a crackwhore and a bitch should realize that he says more about himself when he uses those words than he does about Pelosi, and mostly what he is saying is that he has a problem with women.

Certainly, considering all the times that she has stepped over lines in the sand which she herself drew, and all the and carve-outs and cave-ins that she has been a part of, it is possible to criticize her actions without having to bring gender into it.

I think it is time you put away the pipe. Obama only communicates with conservadems and weak Dems. He always calls on Max Baccus to head his giveaway gangs. Following your logic he would never talk to Reid again. The only push back that he has gotten has been from Pelosi. It is true that she garnered the votes required for what he said that he wanted and then got the house to pass the watered down weak bills that he had the senate weaken. That was her job as leader. I am sure that the White House appreciates your trying to shift blame to the only real leader in the Congress. Remember, she pushed the vote for DADT when the Obama administration was wanting to save it for the next session where, like the Dream Act, they would have a great campaign issue with no worries that it would pass.

If the problem were Pelosi personally, than she would not have been elected speaker / minority leader and she would be being pressured by members of her own caucus. The problems here as elsewhere are with the caucus, and the inability of the rest of us to apply pressure. Making it personal misses what is really going on – and makes it more difficult to solve as well.

If you are speaking to me, I’m female. My gender is a part of who I am. I daresay if I weren’t I would have experienced many of the things I have that have guided me in my belief set. My feelings toward Pelosi are probably more vehement because I know that many of the male half of the species often judge us based on the actions of other females that are visible. Is it fair? No. Then again, neither is it fair that women got to be a bargaining chip in health care thanks to Speaker Pelosi or for that matter in the stimulus bill that garnered zero GOP votes. So I guess what comes around goes around.

Obama didn’t control the House floor. Nancy was the one who took accountabilty during the Bush years off the table. She’s also the one who took single payer off the table and allowed Stupak to hijack the health care debate and forced a caucus of 40 to cave to a caucus of 12.

Excuse making doesn’t make it easier to solve either. She’s a LEADER so yes that means she gets the responsibility for policy passed under her watch. It doesn’t absolve the progressive caucus of their responsibility for not telling Nancy to shove it but it does make her ultimately responsible for policy that happened under her watch.

You’ll get 166 results as of right now. 91 are ceremonial (naming Post Offices and such), administrative (So-and-so is now on the Appropriations Committee) or procedural, which leaves 75 resolutions, of which there are only 63 pieces of legislation, of which only 11 have become new Public Laws.

I agree. That is why I made no excuses for Pelosi, and did not suggest she is above criticism (she is certainly not), and did not say anything to take away from the correct point that she merits special attention because of her leadership position. What reject is making it personal – whether for Pelosi or anyone else.

I am not sure what you mean by ’ultimate responsibility.’ I think everyone bears responsibility for the role they play.

I believe the House passed three bills that included the public option before Mad Max Baccus put together the bill the President really wanted. The bills that passed under Pelosi’s leadership. She then had to go back and pass the Senate’s Romnneycare bill. The President is following the conservadem path that he has since being elected. As Leader, Pelosi ultimately came through with the votes to get his legislation through, unlike Reid. This hating on Pelosi is just cover for the conservative course Obama has taken while in office. If he did not meet with people because they “didn’t force alternatives” or bring things to the table, why in god’s name would he ever talk with Reid or Baccus??????????????????????????????????????????

It must be my military background. In our roles we are basically taught the higher up you are the more responsible you become for controlling an outcome. Senior people get perks(just like Pelosi) and with those perks come more responsibility.

I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. I saw the writing on the wall in 2007 when he was campaigning with evangelicals and declaring Reagan transformational(among my many problems with him). My vote was purely strategic. I figured if I was going to get stuck with conservative policy that it might as well be the conservatives getting credit(or blame as I saw it) for implementing it.

I’m glad that so many are willing to finally acknowledge what a piece of work Nancy Pelosi has been (and continues to be). I remember not too long ago, folks on this blog defending her when she wanted to be minority leader, or when she was still Speaker.